Present web-based ad identification and reporting solutions are not adequate at understanding ad placements on publisher sites and how placement affects revenue yield and delivery cost. Also, these solutions fail to identify the sources of good and bad traffic in the case where one is trafficking via third-party ad networks and publisher networks.
A key issue with network trafficking (i.e. buying ad impressions via third-party ad networks and publisher networks) is that summary-level totals on Impressions, Clicks, Click-through Rate (CTR), and Total Unique Visitors (Uniques) are typically provided. These third-parties do not provide “drill-down” capability to view the internal makeup of the aggregated traffic volume. Therein lies an inherent problem, which is a lack of transparency. With this lack of transparency comes an opportunity on the part of the trafficker to introduce fraudulent or otherwise under-performing traffic volume to the effort.